Bonnie locked the door, stuffed her keys in her coat, and walked around the corner into the alley of 5th Avenue. Prepping herself inwardly, she thought, All right, dude. I know you’re blood-bound. I can tell you’re not human. I don’t want to eat you—I want to save you. I’m a good vampire. Just let me cut you open and pull out the crap that someone put in your blood, okay?

She winced, knowing how bad that would sound. She was rehashing it in her head, deciding to skip the cutting him open part until she got him back to her car, planning to just try to talk him into going on a drive with her, when she rounded the corner and her words died on her lips.

An enormous black unicorn stood in the center of the narrow alley, head down, four foot horn pointed away from her, panting, black smoke dripping from its spiral point and cloven black hooves, seeping into the cracks in the ancient concrete.

Bonnie froze. “What the fuuu…”

Upon hearing her voice, the unicorn raised its head and spun to face her, flinging black smoke that rotted the weeds underfoot and decayed the paint on the wall. The blue energy on its forehead had been overwhelmed by the black energy of the blood-binding, and the black power had regrouped around the horrendous cut in its chest, leaving only the slighted yellow glow where it had once been a blazing fire. It snorted, blowing ebony smoke through its nostrils, where it settled into the cracks of the narrow alleyway.

“…uck.” Bonnie swallowed hard and took a step back, holding up a hand. “Careful dude,” she said softly. “You asked for some help.”

The beast’s black-laced blue eyes fixed on her with unmistakable hatred and the beast lowered its horn and pawed the ground with a cloven black hoof, striking metal sparks as its body bunched to charge her.

Just had to go follow the hobo wrapped in the SALE sign, didn’t ya, Bonita-Maxine? Bonnie thought, just knowing she was about to take a horn straight through the gut. Odin’s hairy nutsack, this is gonna suck…

“I’m a friend,” Bonnie offered, holding up a hand. “Please, unicorn-dude. You were asking for help out there on the sidewalk. That’s why I’m here.”

She was getting ready to bolt back out of the alley when a black-uniformed cop came bustling around the corner from the direction of Bonnie’s car. Talking into the radio, he said, “Yeah, he went around the corner. Currently in the alley of Fifth and…” There was a pause as the police officer’s hand fell away from his face. “Merciful God.”

The unicorn jerked its head from Bonnie to level its black-streaked gaze at the police officer. It snorted again, two black plumes of shadow that spread upon the ground at its feet like the fog from dry ice. Then, in a move almost too fast to see, the unicorn lunged, taking the man in the chest and flinging him up over his back like a bull in a matador ring.

The cop flipped through the air and hit the far wall of the alley like a limp doll…

…and started to dissolve. The startled man frantically grabbed for his radio, but the wound in his chest was already eating away his chest cavity, stealing the air from his lungs. His blue eyes lifted to Bonnie’s in a desperate, wordless plea, his mouth caught in a startled O, before his face, too, was consumed by the putrid brown rot.

It had taken only seconds. Seconds, and what was left of the uniformed cop was a puddle of foul brown liquid.

“Freyja’s tit,” Bonnie blurted, taking a startled step backwards.

The ebony unicorn, who had turned to watch the man dissolve on the concrete, spun once more to face her, rage in its eyes.

Meeting its black-laced blue gaze, Bonnie realized she was facing down an over-tier creature that, according to what little her parents had told her about the evil ones, had the ability to rot anyone but a god from the inside with just a scratch. One that was faster than any other animal in the Realms, aside from those that could walk the Void.

“Crap,” Bonnie managed, swallowing hard. She took another reflexive step backwards. The unicorn tossed its head on a snort of fury and pawed at the concrete, making sparks with its black cloven hooves.

I’m dead, Bonnie thought, not even bothering to run. She had seen how fast it moved. Like a viper spearing a slug.

On the ground, the dead cop’s radio crackled to life. Davidson? We didn’t get that last transmission. What side street did he go down?

The unicorn hesitated, exposing its back to her as it twisted to look down at the radio.

You want to die a coward, daimyō? Masaaki’s mental voice demanded of her, a memory from yet another of the samurai’s bone-cracking sword practices. When you sense an opportunity, you take it, you don’t cringe like an addle-brained woman. He’d slapped the sword he’d taken from her against her arm hard enough to leave a welt, disgust on his face. If your enemy is stupid enough to offer you his head, you don’t just stand there—you cut it off!

Indeed, the unicorn had begun stomping at the radio in a blind rage, snorting and kicking up flaming blue sparks against the cement with its metal feet.

Oh crap, Bonnie thought, sensing this was her ‘opportunity,’ and she was dead the moment it turned back, none of Jessie’s convenient ‘respawns’ available. Odin hates a coward…

She took a running start and, using reflexes and strength she hadn’t possessed before Masaaki’s awakening, leapt onto the thing’s horselike back and, as it froze and its head came up with a snort, she gripped it around the neck with one arm and started punching it in the side of the head.

“Die, die, die, die!” Bonnie screamed.

The beast—a massive horselike thing about the same size as a Clydesdale—shrieked a ringing, bell-like whinny that sounded almost like it had come from a big cat and reared up onto its hind legs, kicking its front legs and thrashing its huge horned head as it tried to dislodge her.

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When that didn’t succeed in flinging her off, it slammed back to the ground like an asteroid landing and started bucking.

Bonnie, clinging to the black mane with both fists, started to scream as she was thrown back and forth, tossed about like a particularly stubborn louse.

“I’m trying to help you!” she shrieked, as the beast again switched tactics and started trying to ram her into the side of the alley. She kicked off the concrete wall, throwing the beast back with her, making it stumble long enough for her to flip back onto its neck, where she went back to pounding it in the head. “Trying. To. Help. You!”

The dread unicorn started bucking in earnest, and Bonnie suddenly found herself riding the beast with both hands jammed into the flesh of its neck, wrapping her legs around it and digging her hands into the meat like the spurs of a Mexican bull rider. She screamed and rode it down the alley as it did its best to scrape her off its body like a plantar’s wart.

The unicorn, thrashing its head and snorting, galloped in a cloud of withering black fog straight out onto Fourth Avenue, making a little old lady look up from her sedan in horror as it lunged over the hood of her car, Bonnie clinging to the meat of its neck like a lamprey.

“Oh yeah?!” Bonnie cried, as it ducked back into the next alley over and the thrashing continued, the animal sounding like a dying tiger. She had been hanging on with a death grip as the unicorn tossed his head, flinging her this way and that like a freaked-out tabby flinging around a rabid mouse, and she was rapidly losing the battle. “Take this, you frosty jötnar buttbaby!” She slammed her fangs into the beast’s thick neck even as she dangled by her other arm. She felt the release in her wrists even as she felt herself start to absorb the acrid blackness roiling within the unicorn’s body.

Immediately, Bonnie yanked her fangs back out, feeling dirty all over.

Beneath her, the dread unicorn had gone completely still, its black-streaked blue eye rolling to look at her, its whole ebony body quivering as it stood there in the middle of the alley off Fourth. She saw the same agony that she had seen in Tl'oghk'etnaeyen as he was fighting Buðlungr’s compulsions.

“I will love you more if you forget about whatever dude is trying to compel you for a minute and just relax,” Bonnie panted. “I want you to be a guy, not a unicorn for a sec, okay?” She knew that she was definitely going to face Death-By-Masaaki for enthralling not one, not two, but three people in his absence, but she wasn’t about to play moral King of the Mountain with a sword-flinging hypocrite who had left her alone for almost a week, now.

In an instant, the unicorn let out a shuddering groan and collapsed in on itself, and Bonnie found herself laying atop a sweating, thrashing, naked man.

“Noooo,” he sobbed, trying to fight his way free. “Gaia help me, not a vampire too, nooooo.”

Bonnie grabbed the blond man by both sides of his head and forced his face around to look at her. Frowning, she said, “If you love me, you want to hold still.”

“I don’t love you, you Thirdlander bitch!” the unicorn shrieked, trying to kick at her. “Your poisons don’t work on me!”

Bonnie’s mouth fell open. Beneath her, the man had twisted back to all fours and was starting to upform into a horse again.

“Stay down!” Bonnie snapped, punching him hard in the side of the head before it could outgrow her fist.

The man’s blue eyes went wide and he shuddered, then slumped back to the concrete, panting. A low, desperate sob began to build from his chest.

Bonnie flipped him over and grabbed his face again. “Listen,” she said, forcing him to look at her once more. “I’m not trying to enthrall you. I’m—”

“You just did try to enthrall me!” the unicorn screamed, thrashing again. “Get off of me, demonkin!” He started rabbit-punching at her face, and Bonnie had to grab both his wrists and shove them back to the ground, panting.

“Shut up!” Bonnie hissed. “You wanna kill more people? They’re gonna hear you and come running, you idiot! I’m trying to help you! I can remove the blood binding, you Loki-loving dumbass!”

That seemed to get through to him, because the whimpering man shuddered and, sweating, closed his eyes and started to rock underneath her.

He’s riding the edge of sanity, Bonnie thought, her heart going out to him as she watched.

“Listen,” she tried again, more gently. “I think I can get whatever that…thing…is out of your blood. I just need to make another öndkar.” Even then, this close, the glowing blood-red runes scattered throughout his bloodweb looked etched into the veins themselves. Then she grimaced. “Well, I’m pretty sure. Tl'oghk'etnaeyen’s didn’t have runes in the blood like that.”

The man’s eyes snapped open, and for a moment they were completely blue, with no hint of the corruptive darkness that had shadowed them a moment before. “You know Lord Naltsiine?”

“Maybe Bonnie said, wary now. “How do you know him?”

The unicorn’s eyes went wide. “Everyone knows of the banished firstborn son of Lord Yazaan Naltsiine. He’s the rightful heir to the Sky Clan. His power eclipses even his great father.” He breathed it like he was reciting some holy truth. “Do you know where to find him? He might be able to help me. I’ve been looking for him for seven years and I feared he was taken…” The hope in his cerulean eyes and boyish face was painful.

Bonnie grimaced. “Well, to be honest, last I saw him, he’d taken a feylord’s arrow through the hand and got yanked into a portal by a couple of vampire lords, sooooo he’s probably not doing so hot right now. But I’m hoping to find my barghest friend and go looking for him. Later. I have an appointment with my buffet first. And my shrink. Definitely my shrink. No offense, but I think I’ll be taking you with me.”

The man’s bright blue eyes widened in obvious fear, and immediately, the black started trickling back into his gaze and he started thrashing again.

“No, Thor smite you, Stop. Struggling!” She had to wrench him back around and slam him back to the curb, gasping with the exertion. The man’s panic, combined with whatever arcane blood magics were powering his body, was making him strong.

“He’ll get me,” the unicorn whispered, eyes once more tinged with terrified blue. “Please don’t keep me here. He’s looking for me. I can feel him looking…”

Bonnie frowned. “Who’s looking for you? Buðlungr?” She remembered the black snakes of seiðr that had whipped from Buðlungr’s fingers as he took down helicopters and submachine guns and wasn’t exactly looking forward to a rematch.

The unicorn whimpered, shivering against her body like a terrified rabbit. “I don’t know who. He has…bugs…in him…”

“Bugs?” Buðlungr was an asshole, but she didn’t remember him having any sort of insect infestation. Bonnie squinted down at the unicorn, acutely aware of his nakedness, once more having to hold his wrists over his head to keep him from wriggling away. “You mean like locusts?” She remembered Björn mentioning something about locusts in Wal-Mart, but she’d thought it was just another bout of bragging, casually tossed in there between breaking the leg of a Valkyrie and eating enough meat he had to shit out half a cow in the middle of the men’s restroom in the Northway Mall.

“Locusts yes,” the man on the ground babbled, squirming. “Please don’t keep me here. He’s coming.”

“Does he…wear a cowboy hat?” she asked, rewinding to the part of the leg-breaking conversation where Björn had been bragging about ‘taking first blood’, just before launching into a diatribe about the ‘five biggest shits of his life’. “Egyptian looking?”

But the man’s eyes went wide with recognition. “Please,” the unicorn whimpered, cringing. “Please don’t let him have me. He made me kill people. Please don’t let him find me again. He’ll undo what they did…take me back…”

“Okay, look,” Bonnie said, as he cringed and shivered under her like a dying thing, “I’m gonna get you some clothes and—”

“No!” the unicorn shrieked. “He’s coming, I can feel him coming!” He started kicking at her, the black taking hold of him again.

And, because he had started to upform into a unicorn again, Bonnie grabbed his skull in both hands and started slamming it into the concrete as hard as it would go.

She hit it enough times that the man’s eyes went wide, then rolled into his head as he went as limp as a doll.